


Benefit of the doubt

by Miya_Eulik



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: But Not Much, Gen, Interaction between police and superhero, Near kiddnapping off-screen, Police, Police is not an asshole, a little bit of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miya_Eulik/pseuds/Miya_Eulik
Summary: Officer Jefferson Davis wasn’t a fan of so-called vigilantes. What should he think of them exactly? Crazy people who thought, they were able to make the work of real cops. But what was he supposed to do when Spiderman suddenly stood in front of his car on a rainy night, with a deeply disturbed little girl in his arms who had almost been kidnapped by her own father? Right, his damn job.
Relationships: Spider-Man & Police
Comments: 9
Kudos: 138
Collections: Our Spider





	Benefit of the doubt

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everybody.
> 
> This is my second work I managed to translate in English. As you can probably tell, I am not a native speaker, I am originally from Ukraine and am leaving in Germany right now so I apparently write mostly in German, but I wanted to improve my English and the best way for me to do it, is to write in it. I mean, it worked with my German...I hope my English is not that bad...
> 
> As for this story. I searched this archive for a story where Spiderman is interacting with the police because I think it is a really interesting situation to read about and all I the stories I found the police acted like the last assholes so I just decided to writ y own.
> 
> If you know German, I highly recommend you to read this version. You can reach it through this link here: https://www.fanfiktion.de/s/5dac5a11000137577ad4896/1/Vertrauensvorschuss

It was late afternoon, the sun kissed the horizon goodbye through the thick mist of heavy rain clouds as it turned down for the night. Heavy raindrops drummed a strange melody over the car roof and poured little creeks over the windshield-glass, laying a wet veil over the outside world. It distorted the surroundings, turning it to some kind of unrecognizable parallel world where nothing appeared to be, as it should be. The sweet smell of cheap cigarettes rose from the squeezed tilts in the overfilled ashtray and mixed with the sugary scent of donut glaze. Officer Jefferson Davis hated backshifts. Contrary to popular belief, no more crimes happened in the night than in daylight. A nightshift wouldn’t automatically contain wild chases or armed robberies a policeman could oppose. No, it was quiet, so damn suffocating quite you could often hear your own breath. Even a city like New York will come to rest overnight and the only thing remaining would be the deafening drum of raindrops and the gobble of your partner who was stuffing the fifth donut in his mouth like his life was depending on it. The rain made his day harder at the moment. The wet tracks it left behind distorted the surroundings making it harder to see the environment outside of the car. It was so loud, the two cops wouldn’t be able to hear a gunshot even if it would be fired next to their vehicle. At this moment, Jeff would rather sit at his dining table in the warm familiarity of his apartment and talk to his wife about the day while his son locked himself in his room letting his hellish music fill his ears. Instead, he sat here listening to his partner Sean smack.

“You don’t have to meet every cliché”, Jeff rolled annoyed with his eyes after a while. Sean stopped, swallowed hard and replied sheepishly:

“They are tasty” as if this would explain everything. Sean was younger than Jeff, not even thirty, barely an adult with lanky limbs and a freckled nose. They worked together for just about a month since Jeff's former partner had successfully completed his exam for detective and was now chasing after murders in a fancy suit. Sean came fresh from the police academy, the eyes filled to the bream with excitement and big dreams. This excitement was brutally squashed with every boring patrol the most exciting thing being Spiderman swinging in the distance over the city. Now the kid was stuffing his mouth with donuts and would probably look like a grumpy old alcoholic with a hanging belly and sugar rush as his lone joy in life in some months’ time. Jeff would probably be the same if it weren’t for Rio and Miles.

Jeff opened his mouth to say something, it would probably be something unpleasant, maybe a comment about the crumbs the kid was leaving on the steering wheel because he had begged the older man to let him drive today, but then someone knocked softly against the windowpane on the passenger side. Jeff cranked the window down a bit and was instantly rewarded with a waterfall of rainwater that plunged into the car with the mercilessness of a force of nature. Spiderman stood in front of the window, the fist still raised against the glass, the red of his suit looking darker than usual from all that water it was soaked with, a thin layer of raindrops covered the white of his googles and Jeff asked himself, how exactly the man was able to see through it. In his arms was a little girl, four, maybe five, the golden locks stuck to her forehead and the tiny paint shoes were covered in mud, which pulled up over her legs, leaving ugly splashes on her snow-white socks. She clung to the neck of the self-proclaimed hero with her too-short arms. The big eyes were wide open and red-rimmed and lay on Jeff with a mixture of raw horror and deep mistrust, and the man really hoped she had just gotten lost and Spiderman had picked up the child and was looking for her mother now and not that ... he did not even want to go there. At least the child didn’t seem to be hurt, only deeply distraught. He couldn’t see any blood on her wet, luckily not ripped dress – everything seemed to be where it belonged. Heavy raindrops hung on her long eyelashes or were they tears? When her eyes met the officer's, the girl sniffed miserably and hid her face in Spiderman's crook, who tightened his grip on her as if he could feel her fear.

Jeff did not think much about so-called vigilantes. He could totally get it when they intervene when a fucking alien-hole opened up over Manhattan and some strange, grotesque creatures crawled out of it like cockroaches. But he just could not understand why they roamed the streets at night doing the work of cops. He heard some not very pleasant stories from his colleagues in Hell’s Kitchen about Daredevil and the long trail of broken bones and teeth the man left behind and no one could really say when he would go all Punisher and decide that beatings alone were not enough anymore. Would he then fall back on a brutally permanent method? A dead man could not commit crimes, after all. Such people made the work of honest cops harder, as it should be and although Spiderman had yet to do anything close to Daredevil's brutality, it was only a matter of time. It always ended in violence and death, even if those involved had the best intentions. Because he really believed that Spiderman did all of that, because he honestly wanted to help, but he still wasn’t a cop. At least he always called the police afterwards and gave them all the information he could. But he still was only a civilian and if he happened to die in this fucking suit of his while stopping a criminal the mountain of paperwork would bury the station unfortunate enough to deal with this case. But they could do nothing about it because Tony Stark managed to bully the prosecutor into leaving Spiderman alone. So it doesn’t matter, what someone like Jeff thought about the matter, they could do nothing about it unless they wanted to mess with Stark and honestly? Nobody wanted to mess with Stark.

Despite his more than justifiable displeasure, Jeff said nothing as the masked man stood in front of him for he had a distraught child in his arms who was frightened and the policeman could be a grownup and put his views behind for the sake of the girl.

“Good evening, officers”, Spiderman said loosely, but Jeff could hear the nervous tones in his much too young voice, “Uhm, that’s Holly”, he stroked the girl calmingly over her wet hair, “a man tried to kidnap her, I think, it was her father…however, he is in that back ally down there”, he turned around a little bit and pointed in the back ally he must have come from.

“Sean, go and see for yourself”, Jeff said, taking the donut box from his partner's glittering fingers. The younger man grimaced in disapproval, with a grunt getting out of the car into the rain and jogged into the alley.

“The webs will dissolve in about an hour!”, Spiderman called after him. Jeff rolled his eyes and called for reinforcement.

“The girl should get in the car”, said the officer after seeing the child sniveling in the crook of her savior. Spiderman put the little Holly down and crouched in front of her. Her small hands immediately reached for his as if he was the only person that could comfort her in this situation. It was probably the case. If his story was real – and there was no reason to doubt him – then he saved her from a very awful situation.

“Holly”, Spiderman said softly squeezing her tiny fingers, “that nice officer over there will bring you to your mommy, there…”, he opened the door of the car for her, “…hop in the car”

“Will you come too?”, she sobbed softly.

“I can’t”, Spiderman shook his head gently, “but it is all right, before you even know it you would be back with your mommy”, he repeated and started to help her into the car as she threw herself sobbing around his neck.

“No, I want you to come with me!”, her tiny fingers squeezed his suit and maybe it was even painful but the vigilante didn’t flinch back.

“Holly, it’s all right, you are safe now”, he tried again, but her grip tightened against the red cloth – was it even cloth? What were superhero suits even made of? Jeff didn’t want to know. She wouldn’t let go of him and Jeff didn’t want to be the one ripping the child of of Spiderman. She was distraught, fearful and the officer couldn’t bring himself to take that last bit of comfort away from her. At least it wasn’t Daredevil, Jeff thought with a deep sigh and made a decision which would later totally come back to bite his ass.

“Jump in, both of you”, he finally said more grumpily than intended. Spiderman spun around. The white of his googles – and it was really amazing how much emotion a full-face mask could transmit – widened as if he were widening his eyes, probably he was doing exactly that behind the mask.

“Uhm, well…”, he broke off nervously.

“It’s OK, no one will arrest you today, the girl should not stay in the rain any longer”, not that they could arrest him, but he doesn’t has to know that.

“Thank you”, Spiderman nodded and turned to the girl again, “it’s OK, Holly, I will come with you so you can go in the car, it’s warm and dry there”, Holly didn’t look convinced, but she let the vigilant help her in the car not letting go of his hand until he was inside too. In the rearview mirror, Jeff could see the child squeezing close to Spiderman's side, who put a protective arm around her narrow shoulders.

“Karen”, the masked man spoke quietly, “turn on the heater”, and merely a moment later the officer could see small steam clouds rising from him.

“It’s warm!”, squeaked Holly happily pressing herself closer to him.

“The suit has a built-in heater”, Spiderman explained and of course the damn thing had a damn built-in heater, he would not be surprised if it had a built-in toaster as well. At least the girl would get dry.

“What exactly happened?”, Jeff asked after a while.

“Uhm, I was on patrol, I was about to call it a night, but then…”, spoke Spiderman and he sounded more nervous than a so-called superhero should be, “I heard a scream so I went to look. Then I saw a man dragging Holly after him, she screamed and tried to fight back, but of course, the man was stronger so I intervened. He pulled a gun and I webbed it to the wall. I couldn’t leave Holly all by herself so I led her out of the alley and saw your police car”, he shrugged.

“Daddy was always hitting mommy”, sniffed Holly, “he was always angry and he was always screaming so mommy called the police, but they didn’t want to do anything so mommy waited for daddy to go to work and then she took me to granny, but daddy found me and took me away even when I didn’t want to”, now she was crying again, hot tears running down her round cheeks like tiny streams, and Jeff regretted even asking.

“No worries, Holly, your daddy will never take you away again”, Spiderman spoke gently, “even if he somehow manages to do that, you just tell him that Spiderman will come to save you, OK?”

“Promise?”, the child asked, her eyes wide with wonder and Jeff's heart broke from all the faith she had in a complete stranger, the only one coming to help her in her time of need. He was a father himself and he would never be able to understand how a father could scare his kid in such a way. Just as he could not understand how a policeman had not arrested this scum the first time around.

“Promise”, the vigilant nodded and held out his pinkie finger to her. Holly bounced exited in her seat and wrapped her own pinkie finger around his. They shook in a silent promise and even Jeff had to admit that it was really adorable.

“No worries, little princess, after what happened today your daddy would never get a chance to take you away a second time”, the officer said and hoped, that it was true.  
“My granny always says that the police is utterly useless”, the child proclaimed confidently and it was still adorable, though her not having very flattering words for the authority Jeff swore his allegiance to.

“Holly, you should not say such things”, Spiderman defended the authority that would really like to put him in the deepest hole the world had to offer, “the police is making a really important job, but sometimes they are not able to do a lot, you need evidence to put someone away”, it sounded kind of childish, starry-eyed, the kind of naivety only a child could have, a child who had yet to get the simple fact, that the world was a very bad place with very bad people and suddenly the officer had to ask himself, how old the vigilant on the back seat of his car really was. His voice sounded young, he himself sounded really young. Holly did not seem particularly convinced of his words, she crossed her little arms over her little chest and gave Jeff the most venomous look a five-year-old could muster, and Jeff could not help himself but laugh, soft and throaty and short. He should not laugh, not after a little girl was nearly kidnapped by her armed father, not while he had a damn vigilant sitting in the backseat of his damn car, but he could not help himself. He grabbed Sean’s donut box and handed it in the back. Maybe he would manage to bribe the little Holly whit it. The child cast a curious glance at the box Spiderman now held in his hand – apparently completely at a loss as to what to do with it – then pushed her lower lip defiantly snorting like a diva. Incorruptible.

“The guy is webbed to the wall”, a dripping wet and more than unhappy Sean approached the car casting a curious glance at the backseat. He was holding a gun in his hand, apparently the one of the unsuccessful kidnapper.

“I called for reinforcement”, Jeff nodded, “stay here and wait for them, in the meantime, I will take little Holly here to the station”

“But it’s raining”, Sean whined, Jeff raised an eyebrow and his partner gave up resigned. The officer slipped on the driver's side and drove off. The windshield wipers wiped the water away from the windscreen in lightning-fast movements just to allow new raindrops to take their place. In the rearview mirror, the man could see the girl dousing off against Spiderman after all the agitation she had to put up with today. He couldn’t blame her. Maybe they could try to pry her of of Spiderman now, but Jeff couldn’t make himself do this to her, not after all she had to experience today and in a sense, the officer felt slightly responsible for her misery. If the policeman the mother called had done their damn job, it probably would have never come to this, this little girl would never have been in danger and would have never needed to be rescued by a vigilant. In this case, the police managed to look bad all by themselves, they didn’t need the boy to appear in an unflattering light – and Jeff could not deny it anymore, the man behind the mask was not a man but a boy, and did that not make it a lot worse? Did Stark know about it? Of course, he knew about it!

“Uhm, officer…”, Spiderman spoke softly as not to wake Holly and broke off in question.

“Davis”, Jeff replied shortly.

“Officer Davis, thank you, for doing all of that”, the boy continued, “I know that you are probably not really a fan of what I’m doing”

“Why are you doing it then?”, and Jeff was really curious, he would probably never get another chance like this, to ask one of these crazy people why they did, what they did.

“Why are you a police officer?”, Spiderman asked back a little defiantly.

“I went to the police academy, I have training”

“I have superpowers”, the kid shrugged.

“That doesn’t replace a real training”, Jeff shot back.

“You are probably right, but…”, he could see the kid clench his fists, “when I see something bad happening and do nothing than it‘s my fault when someone gets hurt”, the officer would like to see his face right now, not to find out what he looked like, but to see what emotions were leaving shadows on his features in this very moment, “someone said once to me ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ and he was right”

“Was it Stark?”

“No”, probably this man had been his father and probably he was dead because was that not a recruitment criterion for such people? Dead parents? Tragic past? What should he even say to that?

“Wise words”, he said after some heartbeats eventually, “look, I don’t like what you are doing, you are endangering yourself and others, but…”, he paused, only for a few moments, because he wanted to find words that actually made sense because in this particular situation he was glad that Spiderman existed, but only in this one situation, “…today it was good, kid”, the boy said nothing to that.

The ride to the station was quiet, only the rain pattering against the metal roof of the car and the little girl's little panting sounds broke through the silence and Jeff decided this one time to fuck his opinion, for the little girl, for the boy behind the mask who he would love to convince to stop all of this, but he knew that it would never happen. He would like to know if his parents knew, assuming, of course, they were still alive. He did not know how he would react if Miles got stuck in such a situation and it was a scenario he never wanted even to imagine.

The station was nearly empty by the time they arrived, only one officer sitting behind the reception watching the strange trio with a curious look. With Spiderman’s help, he managed to get Holly's last name. He left them in the sitting room and called the mother. The call with Samantha Collins was hard. The woman sobbed quite miserably at the other end and the officer could almost physically feel her desperation and he could not blame her. If Miles would happen to vanish like that he would not know what to do and he was a cop. The woman would get here in about twenty minutes.

When Jeff entered the sitting room with two steaming cups of hot cacao he'd pulled out of the machine – and they probably tasted awfully nasty, but he was going to feel much more comfortable when the girl got something warm in her stomach – he found the two of them on the sofa. The girl was still clinging to the vigilant as if she was afraid he would just disappear if she turned around for just a second. Jeff put the cups on the small table in front of them and crouched down in front of the girl.

“Here you go, little princess”, he offered her one of the cups, “this is cacao. Do you like cacao?”, the girl sniffed curiously on the cup but pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head, “come on, it is really tasty and it is good for you to get something warm in your belly after that little shower of yours”, she glanced warily at Jeff but decided she really wanted the cocoa and finally reached for the cup. Her face lit up happily as she sipped, and the sight conjured a soft smile on Jeff's lips. He reached for the second cup and passed it to Spiderman who did not hurry to take it.

“Uhm, that’s not necessary, Officer Davis”, he declined sheepishly. If Jeff had not had the strong suspicion that the person behind the mask was still a child, he would have brought him coffee, but since it was apparently so ... better to be safe than sorry.

“Come on, kid, there is nothing in it”, the officer rolled his eyes, “you were soaked as well. Would it not be really embarrassing if Spiderman got himself beaten by a cold?”

“I don’t get sick anymore”, the boy said but took the cup, “at least I think so”, with a sigh he pushed the mask up. The skin below definitely looked like he did not have beard growth yet. What was he supposed to do now with this kind of evidence? Would it be justified to just punch Tony Stark in the face for giving a teenager a weapon of mass destruction? Probably not.

The twenty minutes flew by and before they knew it, a completely disturbed Samantha Collins was standing in front of them. Her hair was disheveled and stuck in shapeless lumps around her pale face. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wide from fright. The area around her left eye was blue and swollen, probably a present from her loving husband.

“Holly!”, she screamed. The girl jumped up and literally flew into her arms. Both of them cried and shook from all the horror they had to endure today. The woman got down in a crouch before her daughter and pressed her forehead against the child's. Jeff could hear her whisper softly, he could not make out any words, but it had to be something reassuring, something gentle, something motherly. After a while, Ms. Collins got up, Holly in her arms and she would probably not let go of her any time soon.

“Thank you”, she sobbed, “thank you”, her eyes flow to Spiderman still sitting on the couch and looking at them, “oh God, thank you so much, I don’t know how…”, she brock off, “I don’t know how I can ever thank you for that. I can pay you”, she was already frantically rummaging in her purse without putting the girl down.

“Oh wow, that’s just, no”, the kid jumped up in a flash, as if beaten, “I’m not doing it for money, that would be so not cool, I’m only doing my part, that’s all, well, goodbye, Holly, goodbye Holly’s mum”, he waved at them, “thank you for your help, officer Davis”, and off he was. Ms. Collins stared after him a bit helplessly, as if she did not understand. It was OK, it should be enough, that at least Jeff could understand. At the end of the day, the officer still was not happy with the vigilantes, but the boy behind that mask was OK. He would still prefer him to stop, it would make his life and that of other cops so much easier but if there had to be a vigilant they could not persecute he was glad it was Spiderman. Maybe he was not doing the right thing, at least from Jeff’s point of view, but he was doing it out of the right reasons and intentions. It would probably go terribly wrong, but maybe not – no one could say it. But what really mattered at the end was the little Holly Collins who could go home with her mother and would never again have to fear her violent father. In this single case, Jeff was ready to give Spiderman the benefit of the doubt.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your attention, I hope you enjoyed it. All form of feedback is highly appreciated.


End file.
